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By Root 610 0

that first one, years ago and thirty-six thousand kilometers higher. During what had, for want of a better term, been called the foundation-laying, there had been a small party in the Basement, and numerous zero-gee toasts had been squirted. This was not only the first section of the Tower to be built; it would also be the first to make contact with Earth, at the end of its long descent from orbit. Some kind of ceremony had therefore seemed in order, and Morgan now recalled that even his old enemy Senator Collins had been gracious enough to attend and to wish him luck with a barbed but good-humored speech. There was even better cause for celebration now. . . .

Already, Morgan could hear a faint tattoo of welcoming raps from the far side of the air lock. He undid his safety belt, climbed awkwardly onto the seat, and started to ascend the ladder. The overhead hatch gave a token resistance, as if the powers marshaled against him were making one last feeble gesture, and air hissed briefly while pressure was equalized. Then the circular plate swung open and downward, and eager hands helped him up into the Tower. As Morgan took his first breath of the fetid air, he wondered how anyone could have survived here. If his mission had been aborted, he felt quite certain that a second attempt would have been too late.

The bare, bleak cell was lit only by solar-fluorescent panels, which had been patiently trapping and releasing sunlight for more than a decade, against the emergency that had arrived at last. Their illumination revealed a scene that might have come from some old war. Here were homeless and disheveled refugees from a devastated city, huddling in a bomb shelter with the few possessions they had been able to save.

Not many such refugees, however, would have carried bags labeled PROJECT ION, LUNAR HOTEL CORPORATION, PROPERTY OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF MARS, or the ubiquitous MAY/ NOT/ BE STOWED IN VACUUM. Nor would they have been so cheerful; even those who were lying down to conserve oxygen managed a smile and a languid wave. Morgan had just returned the salute when his legs buckled beneath him, and everything blacked out.

Never before in his life had he fainted, and when the blast of cold oxygen revived him, his first emotion was one of acute embarrassment. His eyes came slowly into focus, and he saw masked shapes hovering over him. For a moment he wondered if he was in a hospital; then brain and vision returned to normal. While he was unconscious, his precious cargo must have been unloaded.

Those masks were the molecular sieves he had carried up to the Tower. Worn over nose and mouth, they would block the CO2 but allow oxygen to pass. Simple yet technologically sophisticated, they would enable men to survive in an atmosphere that would otherwise cause instant suffocation. It required a little extra effort to breathe through them, but Nature never gave something for nothing—and this was a small price to pay for life itself.

Rather groggily, but refusing any help, Morgan got to his feet and was belatedly introduced to the men and women he had saved. One matter still worried him: while he was unconscious, had CORA delivered any of her set speeches? He did not wish to raise the subject, but he wondered. . . .

“On behalf of all of us,” said Professor Sessui, with sincerity yet with the obvious awkwardness of a man who was seldom polite to anyone, “I want to thank you for what you’ve done. We owe our lives to you.”

Any logical or coherent reply to this would have smacked of false modesty, so Morgan used the excuse of adjusting his mask to mumble something unintelligible.

He was about to start checking that all the equipment had been unloaded when Sessui added, rather anxiously: “I’m sorry we can’t offer you a chair—this is the best we can do.” He pointed to a couple of instrument boxes, one on top of the other. “You really should take it easy.”

The phrase was familiar; so CORA had spoken. There was a slightly embarrassed pause while Morgan registered this fact, and the others admitted that they knew, and he showed that